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Credit:
Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
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A stainless steel blade and zinc body make this pizza wheel super efficient at slicing. It's dishwasher safe and comes with a protective cover, too.
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With sharp, tough 12-inch blades, these pizza-cutting shears make quick work of getting even slices. The design also lets you serve slices with it.
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The additional square blade on this great pizza wheel helps you cut through puffy outer crusts, though that second blade doesn't come with a guard
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You’ve gone through all the effort of making pizza at home and the next step is to actually divide that puppy up. But how do you do it without turning your perfect creation into a slaughtered mess of sauce and cheese? The answer, of course, is a pizza cutter, which allows you to smoothly slice into a long expanse of crust.
The classic handled wheel design has been performing this function for a long time now, which is why we're especially partial to Progressive International’s PL8(available at Amazon). In addition to making short work of pizza, it’s actually surprisingly versatile, as it slides seamlessly though different kinds of dough.
So, is it really necessary to reinvent the wheel? From scissors to rocker blades, we explore this question further with our exhaustive guide to pizza cutters.
These are the best pizza cutters we tested ranked, in order:
Progressive International PL8 Artisan Pizza Wheel
DreamFarm Scizza Pizza Scissors
Pampered Chef Pizza and Crust Cutter
OXO Easy Clean Cut Pizza Wheel
OXO 4-Inch Pizza Wheel
Kitchy Pizza Cutter Wheel
Winware Pizza Cutter with Handle
Zyliss Easy Slice Pizza Wheel
Checkered Chef Rocker Pizza Blade Cutter
Credit: Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
Composed of an 18/10 stainless steel blade, a silicone-coated handle, and a zinc cutter body, the PL8 was appealingly weighty in our hand yet perfectly in balance and comfortable to use.
Best Overall
Progressive PL8 Artisan Pizza Wheel
Out of all the cutters we tested, the PL8 definitely felt the most substantial. Composed of an 18/10 stainless steel blade, a silicone-coated handle, and a zinc cutter body, it was appealingly weighty in our hand yet perfectly in balance and comfortable to use. All in all, this translated to one highly efficient cutter. It made it through thick, bubbled pizzas, topping-laden flatbreads, and seeded cracker dough in single, unbroken strokes.
There's even a hub on that wheel that you can hook onto a hot oven rack, which helps you easily retrieve and cut your pie. Who said pizza cutters were one-trick ponies? It also cleans easily, by either hand or machine, and has a snug-fitting blade cover—a safety precaution that, surprisingly, isn’t a common-sense addition to most pizza slicers.
DreamFarm’s Scizza Pizza Scissors are ideal for throwing an equally communal experience at home. Not only are they fun to use, but they’re also excellent in practice.
Best For Parties
Dreamfarm Scizza
You may have seen scissors popping up alongside uncut pies at restaurants, as they create an interactive experience for diners and are especially adept at cleanly dividing even slices. DreamFarm’s Scizza Pizza Scissors are ideal for throwing an equally communal experience at home. Not only are they fun to use, but they’re also excellent in practice.
They boast 12-inch hardened German stainless steel blades that can make it through even the gooiest, hot-from-the-oven cheese. The nylon non-stick base won’t scratch surfaces and, since it’s flat like a spatula, can even be used to serve too. Just be aware that scissors aren’t as adaptable as your standard wheel, so you can’t cut raw dough with them. We also found them trickier to clean (they didn’t emerge spotless from the dishwasher) as well as to store since they don’t come with a protective cover.
We took each model for a spin by slicing up plain cheese pizzas, topped flatbreads, and crackers. Our objectives were to see how well they cut, how comfortable they were to hold, and how easy they were to clean afterward.
The Tester
My name is Sarah Zorn, and I’ve been a professional food writer and recipe tester for over 10 years. As much as I love dining out, I especially enjoy recreating restaurant experiences at home, like making pizzas (see our recent review of The Best Pizza Stones). And having a sharp, efficient pizza cutter is necessary for that, so I can turn out even slices equally worthy of my favorite pie parlor!
The Tests
We took each model for a spin by slicing up plain cheese pizzas, topped flatbreads, and crackers. Our objectives were to see how well they cut, how comfortable they were to hold, and how easy they were to clean afterward. We also made subjective assessments, including build quality, if they came with any useful safety guards or special features, how simple they were to store, and if they incurred any damage during testing.
What Are The Different Styles of Pizza Cutters?
While most of us are familiar with the standard handled wheel, methods and modes for cutting pizzas have really evolved over the years. The most notable additions to the market are non-handled wheels (easy to store and ergonomic), scissors (fun to use and good for creating incredibly straight and even slices), and rocking blades, for when you’re looking to exert shear force on your dinner.
What Size Should You Chose?
Depending on the average dimensions of what you’re looking to slice, dinky blades can be woefully inefficient while larger ones can be overkill. And besides obvious considerations like usability, durability, and storability, we’d say safety is key in the world of pizza cutters. After all, we’re talking about sharp blades, meaning it’s imperative that you’re never at risk of injuring yourself while actively cutting a pizza or reaching into the depths of your kitchen drawers.
Other Pizza Cutters We Tested
Pampered Chef Pizza & Crust Cutter
Nothing is more frustrating than hacking away at the puffy outer crust. While the Pampered Chef’s well-balanced 4-inch wheel sailed seamlessly through our test pies, we still appreciated the additional square blade on the other side, designed to slice even the toughest crusts into submission. The only issue was that—while the wheel comes with a protective cover—the outer blade does not, which makes us wonder how safe it is to store inside a drawer.
Handle-free pizza wheels are surging in popularity due to their diminutive size and discreet shape, making them easy to tuck in a drawer. They also require you to press downwards instead of at an angle, which should (in theory) provide better leverage. So, if you’re going to go this route, we favor the OXO, which made sharper cuts then the other models we tried. The non-slip material covering the outer edge is comfortable to hold, and the whole thing comes apart easily for deep cleaning either by hand or dishwasher.
Made of stainless steel and equipped with a cushioned handle, the OXO has a lot going for it. There's even a die-cast zinc thumb guard to keep your digits away from the blade. Too bad that thoughtfulness doesn’t extend to storage, as there’s no cover to help you put it away safely. And while it’s really great at what it does, it doesn’t quite match the power of the PL8 or have any extra features.
Our favorite thing about Kitchy is that the protective cover is part of the design. You simply slide it open to use it and then close it when you're done. You don’t have to ever worry about losing it. It also fits seamlessly in the palm of your hand, which is part of the appeal of wheel-less models and takes up minimal space in the drawer. It wasn’t the most effective slicer, though, as we had to make repeat cuts on some of our pies.
The Winware packs a surprising amount of slicing power for a tiny, inexpensive blade. It takes up a negligible amount of space, although the fact that it doesn’t have a safety cover should keep you from throwing it in your junk drawer. There’s no denying that this is a budget product, as the materials aren’t made to survive long-term wear and tear. It’s also simply too small to take on more demanding cutting jobs.
Frankly, the Zyliss scared us. There’s no cover available for the half-moon blade and, while it comes apart for “easy” cleaning, there’s a pretty good chance of severing an artery while you’re at it. It's not a top performer either, so we don’t really see the upside of engaging in Russian roulette.
We admit to feeling like a boss wielding this impressive blade. But when it comes to cutting pizzas and flatbreads, it felt a little overkill. The Checkered Chef didn’t slice any more efficiently than our preferred models, quickly caused our hand to cramp, and took up more room than it should in a drawer. We also found it a bit of a headache to clean. Although you can access all surface areas (unlike other kinds of cutters, which have sneaky crevices food can hide inside), it still had a film of caked-on dough and cheese after a run through the dishwasher.
Sarah Zorn is a food writer, cookbook author, and product tester for Reviewed, Wirecutter and the Food Network. She regularly contributes to outlets such as Saveur, Esquire, and Civil Eats, and has very much passed her food obsessions down, as her beloved rescue hound, Rowdy, regularly deglazes his kibble bowl.
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